New top story from Time: Two Decades Later, the Lessons of the 9/11 Commission Echo

https://ift.tt/373VBFc

This article is part of the The DC Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox every weekday.

There are a few enduring narratives that, with a few tweaks here and there, can frame up just about any big story in Washington. And here in D.C., one of them is playing out with an ironic antecedent inside the powerful Cheney family.

First, the topline: A shocking crime has been committed against America, and investigators want answers. They want to know who in power had missed the warning signs about the deadly attack on the seat of American power. What are the systemic and individual failures, and what changes must be made to prevent a repeat from those who hold American values in such contempt?
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

Almost 20 years ago, the investigators in question wanted to figure out how the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks happened. Today, they want to know what happened on Jan. 6, when a violent mob sought to overturn President Donald Trump’s electoral loss at the U.S. Capitol.

Both probes hinge on the largely undisputed powers of executive privilege—the legal theory that a President should be free to solicit advice from his team without fear that his top hands would be forced to recount their conversations before the world. Twenty years ago, former Vice President Dick Cheney was among those pushing an absolute view on executive privilege as the George W. Bush White House wrangled if and how top aides would talk to the 9/11 Commission or turn over paperwork, even down to routine forms. Fast forward a few decades and his daughter, Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, is now on the other side of that table, demanding answers from former President Donald Trump and his inner circle.

Each reflects the broader posture of politics at the moment.

In the wake of 2001, the investigators negotiated fairly unsuccessfully to get access to presidential memos, schedules and aides. Only when a damning bit of testimony from a former counterterrorism adviser turned the political table did the White House relent and agree to open the file cabinets and allow top hands to testify. The 9/11 commissioners didn’t want to use the limited subpoena power afforded them by the law, feeling it would set up an unnecessary and toxic posture between the two ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, and instead relied on a collective national need to have, once and for all, a definitive accounting of the al Qaeda plot that would spark an almost-20-year war in Afghanistan.

These days, that sense of there being a singular national interest in getting to the bottom of Jan. 6 is nowhere to be found. Americans may have rallied behind the investigation into what led to the worst terror attack on U.S. soil back in 2001, but it’s a far tougher cry to summon a shared curiosity as to what brought the worst political violence to the Capitol since the War of 1812. Outwardly, Republicans don’t seem all that bothered by what happened the day a violent mob overtook the Capitol and tried to derail the routine certification of the November election results. To watch the most popular conservative opinion hosts, you wouldn’t really know the melee left five dead and Congress deeply shaken. “There was certainly a lot of violence that day but it was not a terrorist attack. It wasn’t 9/11. It wasn’t the worst thing to happen to America. It wasn’t an insurrection,” Fox host Laura Ingraham told her viewers on Tuesday, the first day of the Jan. 6 inquest. “God save us from these third-rate theatrics,” she said with a chuckle.

This newsletter has said it before and is saying it again: it didn’t have to be this way. Republicans derailed plans for a nonpartisan, apolitical independent commission to study the events that would have been similar to the 9/11 Commission. Left with no better option, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced she was empanelling a select committee to investigate the day and invited Republicans to join her. When House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy recommended Trump apologists to represent the GOP, Pelosi, as is her power, rejected them as fundamentally unfit to find answers. In turn, McCarthy announced he would not select any Republicans to participate.

Democrats—and Republican mavericks Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, both of whom voted to create the panel and are serving on it at Pelosi’s request—now have the difficult task of answering what created the environment that led to the violence that left statues inside the Capitol smeared with blood and tear gas lingering in the air ducts. While former Vice President Cheney had limited tolerance for second-guessing of executive power, Rep. Cheney seems to have unlimited curiosity. She wants the truth—even if it proves debilitatingly embarrassing for her fellow Republicans. “Will we be so blinded by partisanship that we throw away the miracle of America?” Cheney asked. “Do we hate our political adversaries more than we love our country and revere our Constitution?”

The Jan. 6 investigators, like the 9/11 commissioners, have subpoena powers. But unlike their forebearers, the current officials will not hold that power in reserve. In fact, the panel’s chairman has said explicitly that no one is off limits and subpoenas will be in the offing. This moment’s apparent inability for opposing political viewpoints to even agree on facts makes it much easier for these investigators to drop any interest in comity. The Department of Justice has decided that former Trump aides cannot assert executive privilege, opening the door for their testimony and closing it for Bush-era abilities to dodge questions.

Which is why the bookends of this story—starring two generations of a great American political family—are so deeply fascinating. Where Dick Cheney said Congress had very limited rights at poking the presidency, Liz Cheney is pulling out her lance. The 9/11 Commission had its problems, for sure, but the Jan. 6 panel seems to have learned the lessons. It’s a twist that historians, no doubt, will probe when the history of this century is written far down the road. And it’s a reminder that Washington is a city of some pretty predictable patterns.

Make sense of what matters in Washington. Sign up for the daily D.C. Brief newsletter.

Comments

New top story from Time: Hurricane Ida Winds Hit 150 MPH Ahead of Louisiana Strike

https://ift.tt/3jmdoyl NEW ORLEANS — Hurricane Ida rapidly grew in strength early Sunday, becoming a dangerous Category 4 hurricane just hours before hitting the Louisiana coast while emergency officials in the region grappled with opening shelters for displaced evacuees despite the risks of spreading the coronavirus. As Ida moved through some of the warmest ocean water in the world in the northern Gulf of Mexico, its top winds grew by 45 mph (72 kph) to 150 mph (230 kph) in five hours. The system was expected to make landfall Sunday afternoon, set to arrive on the exact date Hurricane Katrina ravaged Louisiana and Mississippi 16 years earlier. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The hurricane center said Ida is forecast to hit at 155 mph (250 kph), just 1 mph shy of a Category 5 hurricane. Only four Category 5 hurricanes have made landfall in the United States: Michael in 2018, Andrew in 1992, Camille in 1969 and the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935. Both Michael and Andrew were u...

New top story from Time: John le Carré’s Silverview Is Not the Defining Final Chapter of a Literary Career

https://ift.tt/3BMuXOI When John le Carré died last December, his obituarists struck a common theme: here was a master spy novelist who, despite selling millions of books and having his work adapted for television and film , never received the recognition he deserved as a literary giant. Over six decades, le Carré drew upon his brief career in British intelligence to chronicle the decline of the U.K. as a global power and critique what he saw as an arrogant and corrupt Western neo-imperialism, typically through the perspective of those in the “secret world” of spying. His archetypal heroes were not James Bonds or Jack Reachers but often disillusioned men driven by moral values they are not certain they still believe in. What compels people to serve their country, or betray it, was a consistent theme in his work. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] But just as Graham Greene —another former spy turned novelist—divided his work into “entertainments” and serious fare, so can one...

New top story from Time: Google’s Employee Vaccine Mandate Could Influence Other Companies to Do the Same

https://ift.tt/3BQnXRv (SAN RAMON, Calif.) — Google is postponing a return to the office for most workers until mid-October and rolling out a policy that will eventually require everyone to be vaccinated once its sprawling campuses are fully reopened in an attempt to fight the spreading Delta variant. In a Wednesday email sent to Google’s more than 130,000 employees, CEO Sundar Pichai said the company is now aiming to have most of its workforce back to its offices beginning Oct. 18 instead of its previous target date of Sept. 1. The decision also affects tens of thousands of contractors who Google intends to continue to pay while access to its campuses remains limited. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] “This extension will allow us time to ramp back into work while providing flexibility for those who need it,” Pichai wrote. And Pichai disclosed that once offices are fully reopened, everyone working there will have be vaccinated. The requirement will be first imposed at Goog...

New top story from Time: Corky Lee, Photographer Who Spent His Career Spotlighting Asian and Pacific Islander-Americans, Dies at 73

https://ift.tt/2Ymu9yf Corky Lee, a photojournalist who spent five decades spotlighting the often ignored Asian and Pacific Islander American communities, has died. He was 73. Lee died Wednesday in New York City’s Queens borough of complications from COVID-19, his family said in a statement. “His passion was to rediscover, document and champion through his images the plight of all Americans but most especially that of Asian and Pacific Islanders,” his family said. The self-described “undisputed unofficial Asian American Photographer Laureate,” Lee used his eye to pursue what he saw as “photographic justice.” Almost always sporting a camera around his neck, he was present at many seminal moments impacting Asian America over a 50-year career. He was born Young Kwok Lee in New York City to Chinese immigrant parents. He was the first child in his family to go to college, graduating from City University of New York’s Queens College. A self-taught freelance photographer, Lee...

New top story from Time: Joe Biden’s Agenda Uncertain After Progressives Force Delay on Infrastructure Vote

https://ift.tt/39YKeQc For weeks, progressive lawmakers in Congress have been threatening to sink the bipartisan infrastructure bill if they were not given certain guarantees about a larger social spending bill. And for weeks, many of their colleagues thought they were bluffing. They weren’t. And now the fate of President Joe Biden’s agenda hangs in the balance. Progressives claimed victory Thursday night after a planned infrastructure vote was delayed following their united front to oppose the $1 trillion bill without assurances about the fate of the accompanying Democratic spending plan. The move highlighted the growing power of leftwing Democrats, and sent a strong message to the rest of their party: You can’t get one bill without the other. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] “The progressive movement has not had this type of power in Washington since the 1960s,” says Joseph Geevarghese, Executive Director of Our Revolution, a political group that grew out of Vermont Sen...

New top story from Time: R. Kelly Found Guilty in Sex Trafficking Trial

https://ift.tt/3kMSmKc (NEW YORK) — The R&B superstar R. Kelly was convicted Monday in a sex trafficking trial after decades of avoiding criminal responsibility for numerous allegations of misconduct with young women and children. A jury of seven men and five women found Kelly guilty of racketeering on their second day of deliberations. The charges were based on an argument that the entourage of managers and aides who helped the singer meet girls—and keep them obedient and quiet—amounted to a criminal enterprise. Read more: A Full Timeline of Sexual Abuse Allegations Against R. Kelly [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Several accusers testified in lurid detail during the trial, alleging that Kelly subjected them to perverse and sadistic whims when they were underage. For years, the public and news media seemed to be more amused than horrified by allegations of inappropriate relationships with minors, starting with Kelly’s illegal marriage to the R&B phenom Aaliya...

New top story from Time: ‘I Choose to Do More.’ Olympian Ashleigh Johnson Embraces Her Role As Water Polo Pioneer

https://ift.tt/3i8slne When Ashleigh Johnson —the 6’1″ star goalkeeper for America’s “best-team-you’ve-likely-never-heard-of-but-totally-should”—was growing up swimming and playing water polo in Miami, she heard racist stereotypes about Black people and pools. Other kids, parents, even people she didn’t know would tell her they were surprised she could swim. Or ask her if Black people could float. She was sometimes the only Black person around the pool. “When you’re young, you don’t really have the protective mechanisms to not internalize that story,” says Johnson, 26. “I brought those questions to my mother, and she’s like, ‘O.K., that’s not real.’ But I still held on to it a little bit. Because those are my teammates, or maybe a coach I came into contact with, who would limit my belief in myself. And I had to learn you write your own story. And the things that make you different are your strengths.” [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Johnson, who in Rio became the first Blac...

New top story from Time: The Overlooked American Survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

https://ift.tt/3CRBisk More than 75 years after the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on Aug. 6 and Aug. 9, 1945, roughly 136,000 people are living with the memories—and effects—of the disasters . In the U.S., specifically, there are believed to be just under 1,000 survivors. Many of these men and women ended up in Hiroshima and Nagasaki as children or young adults on those fateful days because they were visiting extended family, or had been sent to study in the country during a time of rising anti-Asian sentiments in the U.S. (It was not uncommon for families of Japanese descent in America to send their children to Japanese schools for a few years so that they would have the option to work in the country as adults.) [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Hoping to raise awareness of this community, historian Naoko Wake conducted 86 interviews with members of this community for her recently published book American Survivors: Trans-P...

New top story from Time: Hurricane Ida Makes Landfall, Pummeling New Orleans. Here’s What to Know

https://ift.tt/3gIaUc3 (NEW ORLEANS) — Hurricane Ida blasted ashore Sunday as one of the most powerful storms ever to hit the U.S., blowing off roofs and reversing the flow of the Mississippi River as it rushed from the Louisiana coast toward New Orleans and one of the nation’s most important industrial corridors. The Category 4 storm hit on the same date Hurricane Katrina ravaged Louisiana and Mississippi 16 years earlier, coming ashore about 45 miles (72 kilometers) west of where Category 3 Katrina first struck land. Ida’s 150-mph (230 kph) winds tied it for the fifth-strongest hurricane to ever hit the mainland U.S. It dropped hours later to a Category 3 storm with maximum winds of 120 mph (193 kph) as it crawled inland, its eye 25 miles (40 kilometers) west-southwest of New Orleans. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The rising ocean swamped the barrier island of Grand Isle as landfall came just to the west at Port Fourchon. Ida made a second landfall about two hours late...

Delegation of 60 farmers meet Narendra Singh Tomar, extend support to farm laws https://ift.tt/37Py5x3

A delegation of 60 farmers belonging to Kisaan Majdoor Sangh, Baghpat on Thursday met Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar at Krishi Bhawan in Delhi. These farmers also submitted memorandum wherein they extended support to the new farm laws.

My precise view

Search This Blog